News Photo by Steve Schulwitz Molly Stepanski, left, and her husband Dion enjoy a drink before the soft opening of the new PIFCider in downtown Alpena. The new business will open to customers on Wednesday.

ALPENA — Downtown Alpena will soon have another option for customers looking to enjoy an alcoholic beverage.

On Friday, Presque Isle Farm owners Dion and Molly Stepanski celebrated the soft opening of PIFCider on Chisholm Street in Alpena, just about a block and a half from the heart of downtown.

The normal hours of operation for the tap room will begin on Oct. 19. A grand opening event is slated for Friday.

According to Dion Stepanski, the tasting and tap room will serve eight rotating dry ciders on tap and bottles from every year’s press. PIFCider will also feature hand-crafted merchandise, outdoor seating, a lounge area, a small board game and book library, and, eventually, locally-made charcuterie board and dessert features each week.

“I fall in between a beer and a wine experience,” Dion said. “We’re serving 20 varieties of ciders, all by the glass and others on tap that we will be constantly rotating.”

Stepanski said the expansion of their business from the family farm in Posen — a certified organic, sustainably grown farm-to-table produce business — to the tasting room, made sense. He said his family talked about having the tasting area at the farm, but the distance of the farm from a business district was too far.

The new location, he said, is perfect.

“It would have been much easier to pull off at the farm, but this way, we are going to connect to the tourism that comes to Alpena and be right in the mix of everything,” he said. “The location was definitely key for us to be able to expand and keep creating the type of wide- style cider that we’ve been making.”

The excitement for the opening of the new business is growing, Molly Stepanski said, and everyone involved is ready to become a prominent member of the downtown community and to welcome customers when the doors open to everyone next week.

“We’ll ease into it on Wednesday and Thursday and make sure all of our systems are working well.” Dion said. “Then we’ll be off and running on Friday and we’re hoping a lot of people will come out.”

Presque Isle Farm has been selling its ciders in many stores around the state. Dion said fans of their product will be in for a surprise when they come to the new business.

“We have seven new releases that have never been for sale, two on tap and five other bottles we’re releasing too,” he said.

Dion said at this time there are no plans to open additional businesses, but the business is working to stock more shelves with the cider. He said he doesn’t want things to grow too quickly however.

“We really don’t want to overextend ourselves,” he said.

PIFCider will be closed on Monday and Tuesdays, and then open from 4-9 p.m. on Wednesday and Thursday. The business will be open from noon until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 1-6 p.m. on Sundays.